A good week for the most part. I did a dissertation defense on Wednesday that entailed a lot of work but made me feel happy that I was actually using my core competencies! It was sad to say farewell to
Clarissa students on Tuesday, and I have only one more seminar meeting for the semester, on Monday. I am eager to be less busy - it has been a really demanding year even aside from the latest stuff, I need some lazy days of doing virtually nothing other than exercising and reading novels! - but I will miss these students terribly. Teaching has given meaning to these last weeks....
Now, YOGA.
I flew to Cayman on March 11 to spend spring break with Brent - Columbia wasadvising against non-essential international travel, and I was aware of the risks, but Brent is essential! And obviously though it is much better for me to be in NYC for long shelter-in-place it wouldn't have been at all a disaster if I got stuck there, I had brought all the rest of the books for the semester just in case. Brent and I had run over the risks: I was concerned about being a vector, since I was traveling from a place with widespread viral infection to a place that probably still had virtually none, but Brent noted that since cruise ships were still landing 10K passengers/day and that the added risk I brought was negligible.
I sort of "accidentally" went to a yoga class on the afternoon I arrived - I was anxious to stay awake (I barely sleep the night before that very early flight) and do something active for the day. It didn't seem unwise - it was a gentle afternoon class with people well spaced out. And on Thursday morning I went to work at Cafe del Sol as usual. As I thought later in the day Thursday, though, about my usual Friday 6am hot yoga class, I realized that it would be really irresponsible of me to go. Those classes are germ incubators, and can you imagine my sorrow and shame if a week later I was saying to myself "I am the cause of half a dozen cases that wouldn't have happened otherwise?" So I downloaded a hot 26 app and did the 60-minute version on Brent's screened-in balcony.
I was already thinking to myself - and I know I said it on social media - well, I can see that this is the thing that is finally going to get me to have a home practice, after almost 15 years of doing yoga fairly seriously but not consistently over time....
I don't know that it really counts as a home practice if I'm reliant on teachers still, but I am significantly further towards this goal than I was before we started sheltering in place. I've noticed how when I go somewhere, the two things I get set up right away are run routes and yoga classes - it was consistent across Oxford, Rome, Paris over these last few years, and I am always doing yoga 3-4 times per week (health permitting) when I'm in Cayman. I've been Facebook friends with Susanne (my favorite Oxford yoga teacher) and Bon (my favorite Trastevere teacher) since then; Bon tragically died of cancer.
I did a few Bliss online classes initially, but they pretty quickly had to shut down the studio, and though the online library of classes is nice to have, it's just not the same without a teacher at the other end and a group practicing at the same time. I also did a great class with my old friend Alex Auder! I do have one fairly major constraint, which is that I can't do much of the kind of flow class where you are doing a lot of downward dogs - starting last summer I was having foot problems as a consequence of back problems (first and temporarily in right foot, more permanently in left foot) and it's not good to spend so much time on the forefeet.
Susanne was the person I reached out to some weeks ago as I thought about getting yoga going properly again. She's living in Sweden now, but she's already well set up for online teaching and I decided to go for it. She has a 1pm/my 7am class Monday ("grounded flow") that I do (very limited down-dog for now), then private sessions on Thursday and Friday mornings, with Thursday being a more active class, Friday as a yin session.
Bliss is just now moving to live online classes. I didn't end up using the bank of saved classes at all, partly because I was too busy in April but also because live with a teacher is best! And I'm registered for Chantelle's midday flow class tomorrow. This is exciting - and Heidi's doing a fascial flow class Tuesday morning!
I have a tendency to go all in on things, I really can't overdo it safely right now due to back stuff, so what I am really thinking is going all in on yin. If you know me and you know the terminology, you will laugh with recognition when I say - I do not need more yang in my life, but I sure could use a daily infusion of yin! And EQUIPMENT is required for yin and restorative yoga - bolsters, blocks, blankets.
I have always loved this kind of yoga. It reminds me of early childhood in a Montessori school (and the first yoga I ever did was an Iyengar-based class at the Columbia gym. We used a lot of props - there was a skeleton that could be rolled out to show things anatomically! - and I think for that first semester the only three postures we learned were side angle, triangle and seated twist on a folding chair. I loved it....)
So - more yoga, more yoga SHOPPING (online of course). Very excited too about this new bright pair of yoga leggings - my favorite day-glow color.
